Pine Street resident helps spruce up the Green

TAUNTON --- Twenty-seven years after she planted it at her 56 Pine St. residence, Therese Santos watched as her towering blue spruce was cut down and placed on the bed of a flatbed truck.

Although the moment was bittersweet, the 84-year-old lifelong Taunton resident said she's glad to see it put to a good use – now, thousands of people will be able to appreciate the tree while it is decorated and lit up for the Christmas season on the Taunton Green.

“I’m excited, although I’ll certainly still miss it,” said Santos.

“My yard will be so bare without it, but I hope to plant another.”

Because the tree was starting to overhang her neighbor’s driveway and had to be removed anyway, Santos decided to call the city’s Parks and Recreation Department to find out if it could be used on the Green for the Christmas season.

Within a day, Santos received a call back confirming that the tree would be cut down the next day. Along with the Parks and Recreation Department, three private Taunton businesses volunteered their time to help cut down the tree and transport it to the Green: Barnes Tree Services, G. Lopes Construction and Skyline Roofing and Construction.

Parks and Recreation workers have been setting up Christmas decorations over the past week, according to the project manager Eric Corey. This year, workers were forced to dig a hole for the tree by hand after a mishap last year using machinery.

Corey said that workers last year had dug the hole using an auger and accidentally hit an electrical line.

“It caused a small explosion that made the ground shake,” said Corey.

In addition to the newest (and tallest) tree provided by Santos, Corey said that 40 other smaller ones would be planted on the Green by the end of the week.

Santos herself planted the blue spruce in 1990 when she and her husband, Joseph, moved into her childhood home at 56 Pine St. shortly after the death of her mother in 1988 at the age of 96.

Her father, Noel – who was born on Christmas Day in 1890 - passed away in 1946, more than 40 years before his wife.

According to Santos, Noel had bought the house on Pine Street in 1921, leaving it to his wife when he died. After the death of her husband in 1999, Santos said that she eventually transferred the property into a living trust and it will be passed on to her own children upon her death.

At the time in 1990, Santos remembers that she initially planted the tree in memory of her father.

“I would consider this tree as his Christmas gift to the city of Taunton,” said Santos.